Preparing Your Familyhttp://preparingyourfamily.com
How to prepare your family to survive and thrive in todays uncertain worldThu, 20 Nov 2014 01:04:09 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3.1A Project Delayed, But Not Deniedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/jINc_Gs3La8/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/project-delayed-denied/#commentsTue, 10 Jun 2014 01:00:10 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/?p=3867As you can probably tell by the month since my last post, I’m insanely busy right now.

When we found out last fall I had cancer, it was right at the time we were going to begin building our house on our property. In fact I had my surgery the day we had scheduled to pour our foundation.

Needless to say we had pushed out that foundation pour a few weeks so that we could see what happened with me. When the pathology report came back confirming cancer and the decision was made to begin chemotherapy we decided to put the whole construction project on hold until this spring.

Well, this spring rolled around and I was in remission. Not feeling perfect of course, but hanging in there. I called my builder to get updated quotes on materials and labor, and started the ball rolling again.

And then I got a call from the guy we’re renting from. Last year he’d gotten divorced, and the tax implications of that resulted in a need for him to sell the house we’re renting.

Suddenly the flexible timeline we were working with for construction became a whole lot less flexible, and so our plans had to change. Quickly.

After a quick consultation with my contractors, we decided to build a largish shop building (pole-style) and put some living quarters into it. We could get into that much quicker than a regular house, and cheaper as well.

Well, as soon as weather cooperated this spring we started off. We’ve been at it for a few months now, and have a few months left to go.

Scheduling has been a nightmare, keeping my builder on task and on time has been a nightmare. There are days where I feel like I’m burning the candle at 6 ends, between day job, family, managing the construction, and doing ‘stuff’ there. But it’ll all be worth it.

We’re paying for everything with cash, we’re not taking a mortgage or construction loan. So there have been delays due to not having cash on hand, and there are a few things that have had to get pushed out until after we move in or just before we move, for cash flow reasons. But again, that’ll be worth it too…

Thankfully the house we’re renting hasn’t sold yet, so that clock hasn’t run out yet. We’ll have about two months to move once it does sell, so at this point we should be fine, time wise.

Boy will it be nice to have this done…

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/project-delayed-denied/feed/5http://preparingyourfamily.com/project-delayed-denied/Good Golly, He’s Backhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/7poHXGG-9w8/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/good-golly/#commentsWed, 07 May 2014 04:08:57 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/?p=3861It’s been almost exactly a year since my last post here. Quite a bit has happened, and clearly much of that ended up keeping me off the blog. Besides being busy, there was a very serious health issue to contend with. But I get ahead of myself…

I hope there’s still a few of you die hards out there waiting for me to come back. I know that I get email from folks occasionally asking how I am, and for those I’m grateful. I’ve tried to answer when I could, but sometimes they would slip through the cracks…

Last year at about this time I took a break from posting to head back across the state to pick up my bee hives that hadn’t made the move with us. Alas, they were all dead but one hive, and I left that hive for the farmer who had so graciously hosted my bees. His neighbor is a beekeeper so they’re in good hands.

Upon my return life got even busier. We had to fence in 40 acres of pasture, with cross fences, which took quite a bit of time. We bought cows and ran those on the pasture. The cows showed up before the pasture was ready, so we were literally fencing in new pastures the day before we had to move cows onto it. Crazy…

I picked up replacement bee hives, placing half of them at our new land and half of them at the place we’re renting. They were going gang busters all summer, and the harvest time was looking good.

As you may recall, our overall plan was to rent the home we’re in now while we build a home on our land, then move there full time. Our land is about 20 minutes or so from where we’re renting. So throughout the summer, while I was putting away money to start construction, my wife and I refined the house plans. Over and over and over and over again.

Finally, we ended up with plans that would work, and got cracking. The excavation guy came out and dug us a giant hole to put the house in. We dug a smaller but deeper hole under where the kitchen was going so my wife would have a nice root cellar right under the kitchen.

The week before we were scheduled to pour our foundation, I went in to the doctor with some pain and had some tests run. The diagnosis came back with something I didn’t expect at all.

Cancer.

They didn’t know for SURE, but they were about as sure as doctors could be. The first treatment was to get surgery done to remove the tumor. Once the surgery was done, my entire family and I, were on pins and needles waiting for the pathology reports to come back.

A few days later, in a doctors room with my wife, the doctor and nurse came in with the news we were dreading. It was cancer, and there was evidence that it may have spread beyond the primary tumor. Given that news, we put a hold on our building plans, and focused on the health issues.

Long story short, I went to see a specialist in Seattle, and we decided to wait for a bit before jumping into chemotherapy. The prognosis was the same, and there was a 30% chance or so that I wouldn’t need to have chemo. So I decided to wait a month.

Two and a half weeks later I was back at the clinic for a persistent cough. X-rays showed that I had strange masses in my lungs that weren’t there last month. Turns out I had multiple golf ball sized tumors in my lungs with lots of smaller ones. Plans changed in a hurry

I spent about a month and a half in the hospital, 7-8 days at a time, for inpatient chemotherapy. The week before Thanksgiving we got the news that we were hoping for. My tumor markers were clear and my MRIs showed that my cancer was gone. I was officially in remission. I had one more round of chemo to go and then I was done.

My Thanksgiving was spent in the hospital, but I knew that it was my last round of chemo, so that made it a bit easier. It was still pretty rough. At least it was a brief respite from hospital food….

I’m now in remission, and getting blood work done regularly. I have periodic MRIs to verify my remission.

We’re moving full speed ahead this year with our plans, though things have changed there a bit too. I’ll write about that in another post though because this has gotten really long.

It’s good to be writing again. I’ll try not to let it go quite so long between posts this time….

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/good-golly/feed/20http://preparingyourfamily.com/good-golly/New and Noteworthy for Today, May 9, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/5XsRpXKw2Y0/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-9-2013/#commentsThu, 09 May 2013 09:55:06 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-9-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

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http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-8-2013/#commentsWed, 08 May 2013 09:55:43 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-8-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-8-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-8-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, May 7, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/hYMeoyEa0sc/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-7-2013/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 09:55:03 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-7-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-7-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-7-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, May 6, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/0gyY93wwas0/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-6-2013/#commentsMon, 06 May 2013 09:55:08 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-6-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-6-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-6-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, May 2, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/Kv47hbjTGco/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-2-2013/#commentsThu, 02 May 2013 09:55:54 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-2-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-2-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-2-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, May 1, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/6B8G2XVhJFs/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-1-2013/#commentsWed, 01 May 2013 09:55:07 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-1-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-1-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-may-1-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, April 30, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/jLCPpsnmrIs/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-30-2013/#commentsTue, 30 Apr 2013 09:55:03 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-30-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.

Note: Get these links in real time by liking my facebook page or following me on twitter!

]]>http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-30-2013/feed/0http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-30-2013/New and Noteworthy for Today, April 28, 2013http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PreparingYourFamily/~3/p85IdXxKuFM/
http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-28-2013/#commentsSun, 28 Apr 2013 09:55:23 +0000http://preparingyourfamily.com/new-and-noteworthy-for-today-april-28-2013/Here’s a bunch of links I saw today that I thought you might like.